Emotional Range of a Teaspoon
by Sultanbruno
Summary: Just what was going on, inside Ron Weasley's head, when he abandoned Harry in DH? Explores Ron's motivations and feelings during that time, from the perspective of his emotions. Rated T for minor adult themes
1. Chapter 1

Chapter 1

Fear shuddered deeply as he pulled incessantly on one of the levers in his section of the console, the chilly, slightly moist air of the afternoon only partly responsible for the biting cold he and his coworkers were feeling. In response to his machinations, fleeting purple glows flashed across Headquarters, growing slowly, but steadily more intense, to Disgust and Anger's chagrin.

"Can you stop that, please"? Anger grumbled. "It's not like we can do much to help, out here in the middle of nowhere, hiding like a hunted animal…"

"You can't deny we've got to do something"! Fear exclaimed. " _The Weasleys don't need any more kids injured_ …what d'you think that means? What if they've gone for Fred and George now, or Charlie—"

"WILL YOU SHUT UP"?! screamed Anger. He jammed his fingers into the machine now, and the resulting red-and-purple memory orb slid into its place in the short-term racks. "Just another piece of shit to deal with, when we're already dashing all over the country, freezing halfway to death, losing body parts…"

"…forced to choke down these pitiful amounts of fish and mushrooms just to stay alive, living in this filthy piece of junk tent…damn it, why are we still here"? finished Disgust.

Sadness sighed dejectedly listening to the two complain. It was pretty miserable these days, there was no denying it, but today exceptionally so. It was Ron's turn to wear that… _thing_ …and as usual, it had cast a profound shadow over Headquarters. The normal bright reds and golds overcast to dull shades of brown, the Chudley Cannons posters peeling and faded, and the surroundings bitterly cold. Fear, Disgust, and Anger, at times like these, would huddle to the console as if it would keep them warm, and so it was their influence that Ron would feel every minute of the day. And Joy…Sadness only felt pity for Joy, who was curled up under a blanket on the couch at the back of the room, in a torpor that would keep him as immobilized as any Body-Bind Curse. Not that he'd have much to do regardless, there had been so little to be happy about for so very long.

"And now those two! How perfectly wonderful for them, there's another thing that we've got to go gallivanting off to find for this damn mission, and I'm sure Hermione will be able to show off how smart she is, and Harry will pull off some incredible feat of courage and power and we'll just sit here and be useless like usual!"

"But…sword?"

It was the first word Joy had spoken all day. Fear rushed over towards the back of the room as Anger and Disgust pressed further into the console, to the point where Sadness wondered if they'd permanently impress themselves there. Sadness followed, and up close could see that Joy was weakly stirring, fighting even to sit up as his coworkers approached. "Now…can…destroy…this?"

"Shh…shh…" Sadness and Fear sat down next to Joy – Sadness was struck by how pale he was, his normally ruddy gold skin now a sickly, jaundiced color, his normally vibrant smile a weak upturn of the lips covered with droplets of feverish sweat. "Yes, they say they can use the Sword of Gryffindor to destroy the locket, but not right now, it's hidden somewhere, and we need to find where…" Sadness couldn't bear to take away this one little bit of hope and so kept quiet about the doubts that he was imagining, of the further suffering and pain that might have to be borne before they could find the sword. He exchanged a glance with Fear.

" _What'd you reckon, Ron? Ron?_ "

Disgust was the first to hear their host's name, with Anger quick to follow. "Oh, so now they notice? They don't care enough about what could be happening outside, about what might have happened to our family, but then when we might be _useful_ to them, when it's time for us to think of more places to go freeze and starve, then we're worth paying attention to?" Fear raced back to the console, as if sensing what was about to happen. "No, no, please don't…"

There was a loud _crack_ , and Fear was sprawled on the ground, the blow so hard that it would have broken several bones if he'd had any. "Don't you dare, he's had this a _long_ time coming!" Disgust lightly wound a clockwork dial, and the console lit up green as Ron said " _Oh, remembered me, have you_?"

" _What's the problem?_ "

"Problem?" Disgust was almost shouting. "We're camping out in the middle of nowhere, barely enough food for a house-elf, haven't showered in weeks, having to hide from Death Eaters and werewolves and whatever else is hunting _you_ down, no idea if our family or friends are even alive, no clue when or if it'll end…and you want to know what's the _problem_?" The console glowed a brighter shade of green now, as Ron stood up, not meeting Harry's eyes.

" _Don't expect me to skip up and down the tent because there's some other damn thing we've got to find. Just add it to the list of stuff you don't know_."

Anger pulled several levers now, and his signature red glow began to overtake the green. "I mean, I could grin and bear it if we had least had some plan to follow, some way to see the light at the end of the tunnel, but no! We're just going around in circles, completely lost and confused and with no way to find the other Horcruxes, and no way to get rid of them, and no way to find what we need to get rid of them, and you want us to seriously believe that Dumbledore didn't give you the slightest clue how to go about it all? We trusted you!"

" _I thought you knew what you'd signed up for_ ", said Harry.

" _Yeah, I thought I did too_."

" _So, what part of it isn't living up to expectations? Did you think we'd be staying in five-star hotels? Finding a Horcrux every other day? Did you think you'd be back to Mummy by Christmas?"_

Sadness heard Ron's name being called from afar. It was Hermione, and from the corner of Ron's eyes, he could see her standing off to the side, well away from Harry, but with a horrified expression on her face. He wanted so badly to reach out to her, to tell her that it would all be okay, but there was no room for him on the console, with Anger and Disgust taking up all of it.

" _Take off the locket, Ron_." she said. " _Please take it off. You wouldn't be talking like this if you hadn't been wearing it all day…_ "

But was that even true? There was no question the Horcrux around their neck was terrible for them, the way it sucked all the usual comfort out of Headquarters, the way it reduced Joy to a quivering, ineffectual mess, but even in those times when Harry or Hermione wore it and they were free from its influence, Disgust and Anger would still grumble and keep close to the console, spending entire days producing nothing but red and green memories, going somewhere private to whisper conspiratorially about Harry whenever Sadness or Fear took control. Sadness remembered one such time a few days ago when he and Fear had been at the console, guiding Ron through a conversation with Hermione about how terribly wrong everything had gone and about how uncertain the future was…

…and as if reading Sadness' mind, Anger had that memory recalled to the forefront, only at his touch, the blue and purple tones were engulfed by fiery red. " _You said it too!_ " Ron now shouted at Hermione. " _You said you were disappointed, you said you'd thought he had a bit more to go on than—"_

And then Hermione was denying it, saying she didn't mean it, and Sadness knew that Anger had to be stopped now, or else this would end very, very badly. Disgust took a step away, and he saw an opportunity. Slowly, he began to inch toward the console, despite the bonfire blazing there, Anger being too occupied to notice anything else.

" _So why are you still here_?"

" _Search me_."

" _Go home, then_!"

"WELL WHY NOT?" shouted Anger, with a plume of fire almost like one of those "nuclear bombs" that Hermione had tried to explain to Ron once. "Neither of them need us here, it's not like we can contribute anything useful! And it's not like their parents are going to mourn if something happens to either of them! What about Ginny? What about Mom and Dad? Does he even care what might have happened to our family? What they said—'the Weasley's don't need another kid injured—"

" _Ron, I don't think it means anything new has happened, anything we don't know about…_ "

" _It's all right for you two, isn't it, with your parents safely out of the way—"_

" _My parents are_ dead!"

" _And mine could be going the same way_!"

Now Harry was shouting again, and Anger's flailing around the console was growing more and more intense, and Sadness was now close enough to see him jam his thumb into a bright red button. Ron began to draw his wand from his pocket, the incantation for a Blasting Curse on Anger's lips…

"Look!"

It was Joy, speaking with as much energy as he was physically capable of, which wasn't much at the moment. Fear took a look at him, then from him to the windows overlooking the Islands of Personality, and gasped in horror. "Sweet Merlin, _no…no!_ "

He dashed to the back of Headquarters, eyes glued to the windows that normally had the best view of Friendship Island. Sadness could only gape in despair at the towering structure, a sculpture of Ron with Harry and Hermione in their school robes, holding hands and ready to face anything the world could throw at them, together. It had been supported, over the years, by a succession of different yellow-tinted Core Memories, the most recent being a yellow-and-purple orb created at Albus Dumbledore's funeral, the moment Ron had sworn to follow Harry and Hermione on their mission to destroy the Horcruxes and stop You-Know-Who, because damn it, you do not let your _friends_ go into danger like that alone…until now, because Friendship Island was crumbling to pieces. An earsplitting crack split the seam between Harry and Ron and Harry's likeness tumbled down into the Memory Dump, along with large chunks of the statue of their host.

The air temperature now warmed by several degrees as Anger forcibly removed the Horcrux and tossed it off to the side, but he still would not let go of the console. Sadness now yanked on a rope, hoping to make Ron feel one shred of regret for this, but Anger's powerful influence combined with his and so all Ron felt was resentment and betrayal. He tried to make Ron focus on Hermione – now that the Horcrux was off, maybe she could help him calm Anger down. But Anger snarled and clutched his specialty dials more protectively.

" _What are you doing?_ "

" _What do you mean_?"

" _Are you staying_?"

" _I—yes, yes I'm staying, Ron, we said we'd help Harry—"_

"Oh Hermione, please, _please_ , look at me, do something, don't let us do this…" Sadness whispered more to himself than to anyone else, but Anger would not be stopped.

" _I get it. You choose him_."

From the back of the room, another loud cracking noise was heard, and the rest of Friendship Island went down. Now the statue of Hermione crumbled to pieces as if it had been hit by a Reductor Curse, several more pieces of Ron's statue falling into the abyss with it. The remaining statue of Ron swayed precariously without its structural supports, then it too toppled into the darkness.

Under Anger's command, Ron stormed out of the tent, and with the memory of a forest in Lincolnshire that they had visited a month before – as far away from Harry and Hermione as possible – Disapparated. As the view through Ron's eyes turned black, Fear managed to dash back to the console and push Anger out of the way, weaker now that he had vented his fury so. The console glowed blue and purple now, as Sadness looked out the window to the empty space where Friendship Island used to be, then to Joy trying to pitifully sit up, then to Anger, who had stormed off to the side to stand besides Disgust.

"Guys…" he said softly, "…what have we _done_?"


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2

The blackness of Apparition cleared out as the forest glade came into view. It wasn't raining as hard as it had been before, but there was still mist in the air, cold and clinging. Fear briefly wondered if there were dementors nearby, then tried to banish that thought – with Joy in the state he was, there was no way Ron could cast a Patronus. Beside him, Sadness moaned miserably, tears starting to form in his eyes.

"Guys, what have we done?" The console flashed blue under his influence, regret for the fight that had just happened and remorse for the things Ron had said – or rather, the things that Anger and Disgust had said, and that Sadness and Fear hadn't done enough to stop. "We need to go back, Ron needs to apologize for all that. If we don't…"

"But will they even accept an apology?" said Fear. "If Hermione hadn't stopped us, who knows what might have happened? Ron might have seriously hurt Harry! What if they don't want him back?"

"We _have_ to." was Sadness' reply. "I don't know if they'll want to hear it, but if we don't go back soon, they'll pack up and leave and we'll never find them again – maybe never see them alive again—" He looked away from Anger and Disgust, then pressed a button to recall the memory of the riverbank where they'd been camped out last, preparing to Apparate away…

…only to have Ron's concentration broken when a hand grabbed his shoulder from behind.

Fear sprang into action. A microsecond later, he'd pulled a tab to prepare Ron to fight for his life and Ron reached for his pocket, only his wand was gone and another, much stronger hand had grabbed Ron's. Ron kicked and struggled – fight or flight, that was one of the first things Fear could remember consciously understanding – but to no avail. Ron's wrists were held tightly behind his back, as there was a shimmering in the air and five Disillusionment Charms were removed. There were four of them that Ron could see: a thin, stringy-haired woman with sallow skin and rotting teeth, a hulking, hideous brute of a man who smelled like a cross between a pigsty and a pile of rotting leaves (Disgust whimpered in horror at the stench), a shorter man a little older than Ron with a pockmarked face, grinning stupidly, and a chubby one with close-cropped blond hair, who looked to be their leader, from the way he carried himself. All of them were wearing grey robes that looked like they hadn't been washed in weeks. He glanced at the fifth member of the gang, the unseen man holding Ron captive, and was handed Ron's cherry and unicorn-hair wand.

The temptation to scream was overwhelming, but Fear kept himself in check, showing weakness would only put Ron in more danger. The fat blond one took a few steps closer to Ron, brandishing the wand tauntingly and speaking in a thick Cockney accent.

" _Well well, what 'ave we got here, mates?_ " he said, spittle flying as he spoke. " _He looks like he oughta be in school, don't he?"_

" _I…well…"_ Fear drummed the surface of the console, desperately coming up with a list of possible excuses " _…uh…I just finished, see, and I didn't mean to stumble in here…_ "

" _Liar!_ " The leader drew back a fist and punched Ron in the stomach. Alarm bells went off on the console as Ron doubled over in pain, and the man with the pockmarked face laughed cruelly. " _They always tries to make excuses, they does, but we're not gonna fall for that, are we?_ " His friends chuckled in unison at that, and Fear looked desperately around for a possible avenue of escape, finding none. He glanced at the other emotions, his expression panicked and raw. "What do we do?"

"Well whatever happens, don't let them know who we are!" called Disgust. "If anyone finds out that we're not really at the Burrow, Mum and Dad are done for! Not that this lot looks bright enough to guess, that's a relief…"

Fear turned a key, a specialty one that he normally used to scare Ron into making excuses, either to Professor McGonagall for why his homework was late or to Mum for why he hadn't fed the chickens. It was the same principle, really, just with a lot more urgency right now. " _You gotta name, ginger_?"

" _Uh…I'm Stan. Stan Shunpike_." Why that was the first alias Ron had come up with, Fear wasn't sure, but it would work as well as any. He saw the stringy-haired woman consult a parchment list, checking for the name, and she shook her head.

" _No Stan Shunpike on 'ere_ ," she said, " _but then again, how d'we know he is who he says he is? This one wouldn't be the first to try a fake name, would he?_ "

" _I say we take him to the Ministry and let Madame Umbridge sort him out_ ," said the fat one. _"If he's another mudblood, that's a nice fat payoff for us right there, and if he's not, no skin off our backs, innit_?"

Disgust came up to the console now. Given what his actions had just helped cause, Fear wasn't sure he wanted Disgust here beside him, but then reasoned that Ron desperately needed some confidence right now, and that there weren't any ties of friendship to be upheld with these people. Fear nodded, and Disgust turned another key, to induce the appropriate amount of contempt for the gang. On the outside, Ron's breathing seemed to become a little easier.

" _Well now, you can't just take up the Ministry's time with me, can you? You could get in a lot of trouble, y'know, for accusing a pureblood of trying to fake his family…_ "

" _I think I remember a Stan Shunpike once, last time I took the bus_ ," said the pockmarked wizard. " _He looked kinda like this bloke, tall and thin and spotty, guess it could be him…_ "

" _Are yeh an idjit?_ " asked the stringy-haired witch. " _I've been on that bus too, and Stan Shunpike definitely wasn't no ginger. This 'uns tryin' to hide from somethin', he is!_ "

Fear wished that Joy could be by his side, but the yellow emotion was still too weak to be of any use, and there wasn't enough room at the console anyway. "All right, everyone, we're only going to have one shot at this…"

" _Don't you call me an idjit!"_ snarled the pockmarked wizard. The hideous smelly giant stepped away from him, as if he foresaw something dangerous, as the man stepped closer to the woman " _Yeh hardly do any actual work, y'know, don't do anything but checking yer list and letting us handle everything, yeh could barely capture a kneazle on yer own!"_

" _Couldn't capture a kneazle, could I? Why don' yeh put yer wand where yer mouth is?_ "

Enraged, the first man lunged at the woman and tried to punch her in the face, but she grabbed him and dragged him to the ground as she fell, going for his eyes with her fingernails. The leader snarled and turned to the fighting pair to shout at them, and then Ron made his move.

Fear pressed one button with all his strength, and Ron jammed an elbow into the stomach of the man who was keeping him captive, as hard as he could. The man didn't fall over, but he grunted in pain and his grip weakened enough for Ron to break free with some quick signals from Fear. Ron grabbed the man's wand, a short, dark-colored one, but the ringleader had heard the noise and quickly spun around to face Ron. Fear and Disgust screamed in unison and pulled levers on the console simultaneously.

" _Expelliarmus_!"

The spell felt…strange, to put it bluntly, having been cast with an unfamiliar wand, but it still worked, and the fat man wasn't prepared to block it. He stumbled, dropping Ron's wand on the ground, and Ron grabbed it, stuffing both wands into his pocket. Sadness almost screamed.

"Now, Fear, now!"

Fear didn't need to be told twice. He summoned the memory of the Welsh riverbank where they had last seen Harry and Hermione, and Ron had Disapparated before the memory had fully occupied his thoughts.

The alarm bells of pain rang out as their vision cleared. Fear looked around in horror – they were near a riverbank, yes, but it wasn't the place Ron had left from, and there was no sign of the campground. At the same time, And now Ron was in pain – they raised his right hand, where two fingers were slowly bleeding from the ends, the fingernails having been Splinched during their hasty Apparition. Disgust spun one wheel, and Ron grimaced at the sight.

"Ugh…after that, I'm not sure if we should try Apparating again" murmured Disgust. "Look at what we just did!"

"Well…I…but how else are we going to get back in time?" said Sadness. "We don't have a broom here, and it might take hours if we walk! What if they've gone by then?"

Fear considered the two arguments his coworkers were making. It was true that Ron wasn't in a good frame of mind right now, partly from the lingering aftereffects of wearing the Horcrux, and partly from the…forceful…actions the emotions had had to take over the last few hours. If Ron Apparated now, he might Splinch himself again, and it might be worse than a couple fingernails (he recalled how much blood they'd lost from the botched Apparition after escaping the Ministry). Apparition right now was a risky prospect, no question about it. However, they honestly had no idea how far away Harry and Hermione were – they had come to the correct river, the Apparition couldn't have displaced them too far from their destination – but there was no way to tell which direction the campsite was in, and if they tried to go there on foot, Harry and Hermione might leave in the intermittent time. That, if anything, seemed riskier.

"Maybe if Ron Splinches himself again, Hermione can fix it," said Sadness. "She did it before, the last time…"

"Hermione's not going to want to do anything for us, except maybe let us bleed to death if she can" grumbled Anger. "After what Harry said…well…oh…who needs him anyway? I'm sure he and Hermione can have a nice time canoodling now that Ron's gone and can't spoil the fun, aren't they?"

"Anger, please!" Sadness said with as much conviction as he could muster. "Please! We have to get back somehow!"

"We'll follow the course of the river back." said Fear, to the surprise of the other two emotions. "I'm not going to let Ron risk Splinching, so we'll go it on foot for a few hours. If it seems like we're going in the wrong direction, or if we're too far away, we'll try Apparating again".

Anger glared at Fear, making it clear that he still didn't want to go back at all, but made no objection otherwise. They began wearily trudging down the riverbank, Fear taking command of the console both to look out for more assailants and to contemplate the reception Ron might have when he returned.

After a long walk through the forest, they finally came upon the clearing where Ron remembered the camp had been. Only now the place was deserted – Fear knew they wouldn't see it under the Disillusionment Charms, but there wasn't even the soft humming noise of the Muffliato Charm to tell that there was something hidden from sound as well as sight. Harry and Hermione were gone, and the emotions silently allowed Ron to process the harsh truth that he would probably never find them again.


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3

"Oh, this is bad, this is _so_ bad…"

Fear was frantically scanning the river for any sign of life, any clue where Harry or Hermione might have gone, but with no success. Sadness seemed to recognize how hopeless it was, and arrived to provide the appropriate amount of despair, eyes watering and lip quivering.

"Now…now we'll never see them again!" Headquarters was bathed in blue and purple now, the other emotions at a loss for words at the turn of events.

Anger watched the two at their work. The temptation was overwhelming for him to step up to the console and voice his indignation against Harry and Hermione having disappeared so quickly such that Ron was left behind, but Disgust had a tight grip on him, apparently unwilling to risk something else destructive happening under his influence. He shook his head, then spoke up, trying to catch his coworkers' attention.

"Well okay, it looks like this…happened. Now what are we going to do about it?"

Fear gave a whimper and turned back to the console. Sadness stepped away, though, leaving the purple light to course through the machine.

"What _can_ we do, Anger? Harry and Hermione are gone, and where else is there to go?"

"Why not back home? Isn't that what Harry just said? Go back to Mum and Dad, get some actual bloody food, then go back to school? It's not like we can continue this mad quest on our own, what else is there to do?"

"Go home?" Fear shuddered at that statement. "Back to Mum and Dad? We…I…what'll they say if they see Ron again?"

"I dunno…but remember how upset Mum was when she found out Ron was leaving?" Sadness sniffled, the blue-tinted memory of that conversation recalled at his touch. "At least she'd be happy that he's safe…wouldn't she?"

"Oh, I don't know about that…" Disgust spoke up now, his tone bitter and cold. "They'll ask what happened, and we'll have to tell them that Ron _abandoned his friends_ when they needed him…and I can't imagine that going over very well, for some reason."

"First of all, they're his parents, and secondly, they never wanted Ron to go off Horcrux-hunting in the first place," said Anger. "Why shouldn't it be okay to go back to the Burrow?"

"Because, genius, it's more than just Mum and Dad we'll have to deal with! Fred and George and Ginny are going to find out when they come home for Christmas—are you looking forward to hearing from _them_? And most likely, Mum and Dad will make Ron go back to school, and then we have to face everyone there…" Disgust marched up to the console and opened a drawer with an Imagination Filter, one that he'd been keeping around for a few years now, and inserted it into the machine. The other emotions saw the faces of their classmates from Hogwarts projected into Ron's Mind's Eye—there was Malfoy, jeering in smug triumph, the other Slytherins joining him, then disappointment and contempt from the members of Dumbledore's Army—Luna, Parvati, Lavender, Seamus, Neville—and throughout it all, the words "useless", "loser", "coward", "traitor" seemed to emanate from all of them and none at once, the room glowing green and blue at the thought of the shame they would have to face.

"Damn it, Disgust, can't you make up your mind? You wanted Ron out of there just as much as I did, and now you're going to keep him from going home?"

"If going home means the end of what little dignity we have left, how can I possibly allow it?"

"But what else is there to do!? We can't stay out here by ourselves—do you want those thugs to find us again? Or if they don't, would you like to sleep in the fields and die of exposure?" Anger fixed his gaze at Fear—that last part had definitely had an effect on him, he would never forgive himself if he couldn't keep Ron safe from harm.

"They'll be so disappointed…" murmured Sadness, tears building in his eyes "…but now Ron's alone, and that's so horrible…oh, what can we do, Anger? We just can't do anything right!"

Anger breathed deeply, but didn't say anything. Sadness recalled the memory of the fight with Harry and Hermione—blue streaks flowed in to join with the red at his touch—and Ron slumped to the ground in shame at the memory of what he had done. Anger wanted to take Sadness by the shoulders and throw him to the other side of the room, because sulking was frankly not going to help at all, but he couldn't bring himself to do it. From the very beginning—from the moment he'd stepped into existence, the first emotion created in Ron Weasley's mind, and the one the other emotions had turned to for leadership and guidance—his purpose had been to make sure things were fair and just for Ron, and the world was definitely not being fair now, but what could he do about it? Screaming and violence had gotten Ron into this situation, and it definitely wouldn't mend his relationship with Harry and Hermione, but the others seemed to be looking to him for a plan, and…

"Hey…guys?"

It was the first time Joy had spoken in what felt like days. Anger turned to see him shuffling over towards the front, still weak and slow, but the fact that he could stand up at all was a minor miracle. He was carrying something in his hands—an idea lamp. Anger realized the Train of Thought must have stopped by when they were all arguing.

"We can't go back to Harry and Hermione, and it doesn't seem like you all want to go back to Mum and Dad, but what if we went somewhere else?"

"And where might that be?" said Disgust.

Joy tried to set the lamp on the console, but he was so unsteady on his feet that he stumbled and almost dropped it. Sadness grabbed it before it could hit the floor, and put it in its place. Almost immediately, a depression formed as if the machine had transfigured itself to clay and the object was consumed, and then Bill's face flashed onto the screen.

"Bill?" said Fear, as if not wanting to believe it. "You really think he'd help us?"

"He's got his own place with Fleur, and…well…I hate to say it, but maybe disappointing him will be less painful than disappointing the rest of the family" said Sadness.

"But what if he tells Mum and Dad? Then they'll make us come home, probably, and it'll all have been for nothing". Fear started pacing around the room, not touching the console, but still twitching. Disgust gave a noncommittal shrug and looked over towards Anger. Anger looked out the windows towards the Islands of Personality, where Family Island, for the time being, was still standing.

"I…well…damn it, it's probably the best choice we have. I approve." He glanced at Sadness, who gripped the console, summoned the memory of the Leaky Cauldron, and punched in the code for Ron to Disapparate.

/

Diagon Alley was bleak and overall uninviting, but Ron wasn't there for shopping. Fear took the helm now as they hurried down the street toward Gringotts. Ron had never been to visit Bill since he got the desk job, but he knew that it was close to time for the human employees to be leaving, so perhaps he could just wait around outside the building until Bill stepped out to Apparate home…and then nobody was quite sure what would happen, but if Bill didn't agree to take them in…

Gringotts' marble-white facade looked almost eerie and strange in the sunset, and Fear's grip on the console grew tighter as they passed by the posters with Harry's face bearing the words UNDESIRABLE NUMBER ONE. Ron approached the marble steps, but didn't go inside the building, Fear not wanting to run the risk of a Death Eater recognizing them. Ron hunkered down in the shadow of the building, silently watching the entrance for the figure of his brother.

After thirty minutes in the steadily-darkening alley, the front doors opened and a few shadowy figures stepped out. Fear and Sadness came to at the forefront. Bill walked down the steps, waved goodbye to his coworkers, and set off towards the Leaky Cauldron. Ron stepped out of the shadows then, and Bill took notice.

" _Ron? What are you doing here_ "?

Fear stepped away from the console, leaving Sadness to do this alone. He sniffled, biting his lip to hold back the tears, and Ron did the same thing.

" _Hey, Bill. I—I need your help_."

" _Ron, what's going on? Are you hurt? Are you—are Harry and Hermione-?"_

" _No!_ " The red-and-blue memory of the fight appeared on the screen. " _They're fine, it's just I—we—there was a fight, and now—well—they don't want me anymore_ ".

Bill frowned deeply and Sadness pressed himself into the console further. On the outside, Ron looked down at his feet, the silence between him and his brother almost palpable.

"Oh Merlin…" Fear approached the console, pressing buttons that caused purple and blue glows to emanate from the surface. "He doesn't sound happy—what if he tells us to go away? What'll we do then? Where else will we have to go?"

" _You ran away, didn't you?_ "

Sadness moaned, and a tear began to drip from Ron's eye. Anger was ready to step up and take Bill to task, chew him out for not being willing to help his brother in an hour of need, but then Bill spoke again.

" _Now I guess you need somewhere to go, right?_ " And this time, there was a note of resolution in his voice. Sadness loosened his hold on the console ever so slightly.

" _Can you help me? I promise, it's just for a little while…_ "

Bill sighed. Fear glanced nervously at his face, then at Family Island, and then Bill silently nodded.

" _All right, you can take the spare bedroom, but only just for a little while. Okay?_ "

Joy looked like he wanted to approach the console, but a disapproving look from Disgust caused him to restrain himself. Sadness lightly tapped a few buttons on the blue machine, and Ron sighed.

" _Just…thank you so, so much, Bill. I promise, I won't take up much space._ "

" _I'm sure you won't, Ron_." Bill chuckled, albeit a little nervously. " _Come on, come with me_." He held out his hand and Sadness induced Ron to take it, the bitterness and shame of the moment encapsulated in the blue and green tones.


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter 4

Christmas morning dawned wet and bitterly cold in Cornwall. Disgust had taken Dream Duty the previous night, one he'd seen a few times before in which Ron would come back to Harry and Hermione, and they would smile and forgive him wholeheartedly – only then Hermione would hold up her hand to show a ring on her finger and happily say that Ron had missed her and Harry's wedding, and then the two of them would embrace and start ripping off each other's clothes – and then Ron would have to be woken up, none of the Emotions willing to let it go that far.

More than once, Disgust had contemplated leaving Shell Cottage, getting away from this place where Ron was really only tolerated by Bill and Fleur and where there was nothing to do but listen to the wireless and stew in self-loathing, but the others wouldn't allow it. Fear said that they had nowhere else to go, Sadness had lost hope that Ron could ever be forgiven for what he had done, Joy was just happy to have an indoor place to sleep, and Anger would hardly even speak at all these days, having apparently lost the willpower. So that was how they spent their time: Ron would pace back and forth around the small bedroom that Bill and Fleur had given him, or just lie in bed, and so it would be in his head. Sadness and Disgust had been the only emotions at the console in all that time. Here, there was nothing to be angry at, nothing to be scared of, and _definitely_ nothing to be happy about. So that was Ron's life now, replaying constantly the now-entirely-blue memory of the fight, punctuated with green-tinted periods of shame as he contemplated what an awful friend he'd been to Harry and Hermione so far.

"Christmas…how wonderful" grumbled Disgust as the others filed into the control room as Ron awoke. "No presents, of course, and our life is still in shambles, but hey! Anyone in the mood to be festive?"

Of course, none of them were, not even Joy, who could normally be counted upon to spend all the days leading up to Christmas blissfully dreaming of roast turkeys and baubles and gifts. Sadness stepped past him and the cobalt shades of despair mixed in with Disgust's green-tinted self-loathing.

"Maybe we should just go commit suicide," mumbled Sadness as a few tears dripped to the ground. "I mean, what is there left for us? Harry and Hermione are probably better off without someone so stupid dragging them down, and they've probably got almost all of the Horcruxes now and are sleeping together every night besides. Bill and Fleur would probably only be too happy to see us go, and Mum and Dad will never forgive us once they find out what we did. What good are we to anybody?"

Anger slapped him.

"Don't you _ever_ talk like that again, you hear me! We are going to find a way out of this – don't you remember the wireless? There's still resistance out there, and even if we're not with Harry and Hermione anymore, we can still do our part against You-Know-Who! Damn it, Ron was sorted into Gryffindor for a reason!"

"Yes, I imagine because of your tendency to go off half-cocked and crazy in every situation", said Disgust pointedly. "And look what kind of friend _that's_ made us to Harry and Hermione over the years! It's a wonder they didn't get rid of us sooner."

"Would you like to try and do my job, then? It's only because life is so…well… _unfair_ that I've had to work as much as I have. Everything I do, I do for Ron, you know that!"

"Like you did during the Triwizard Tournament? Harry needed Ron to support him, he was so lonely and scared – _and you wouldn't let Ron do it_! You made him jealous and resentful, and it's a miracle we didn't lose Friendship Island! Why?"

"I already apologized for that, but it _seemed_ like Harry had decided to enter the Tournament as a way of getting even more famous than he already was, without including Ron. And that wouldn't have been the sort of thing a friend would do, would it?"

He took a step towards Disgust. "And have _you_ never made a mistake taking care of Ron? What about first year? You pushed Hermione away, you know – _you_ got Ron to say she was a "nightmare without any friends", just for being good at a Levitation Charm. And she was almost killed by a troll!"

"Oh, for Merlin's sake, cut me some slack! She was irritating as anything back in those days, before we were friends. And it wasn't _my_ decision for her to take it the way she did – you're not going to blame me for the troll, are you?"

Now Fear spoke up. "It—well—she might have not forgotten what we said, though, and maybe that's part of why she wanted to be with Harry over Ron. That and the Yule Ball – you remember the Yule Ball? You wanted Ron to ask someone prettier than her, and when he said so…well…that probably really hurt her!"

Disgust glared at him, not wanting to think about the catastrophe that was the Yule Ball. "Oh, just lay off, will you? _You_ , Fear, are always interfering at the very worst times – like remember the Quidditch season, fifth year? You'd give Ron so much anxiety during games he could barely play!"

Fear whimpered quietly, muttering something about everyone watching him. and then Joy spoke up.

"If we're talking about Quidditch, Fear didn't do too much lasting damage, did he? _I_ helped him get to the top of his game for the finals, and we won the Cup two years in a row!"

"So what are you saying, Joy?" said Disgust. "Are you suggesting that everything bad that's ever happened to Ron could have been avoided if you were in charge?"

"Well, when has being happy ever made something bad happen? Like in sixth year, when Sadness and Anger were upset about Hermione, and Harry almost kicked Ron off the Quidditch team because of how they were making him act? All it took was a reason to think positive to get out of that slump!"

"Joy", mumbled Sadness, " _you_ were the one who got Ron together with Lavender Brown. With how Hermione reacted to that, I'd say that constitutes "something bad", certainly." Joy looked taken aback, but then quickly changed the subject.

"Hey…um…how about we listen to the wireless? Maybe there'll be some good news on Potterwatch for once."

Disgust sighed and stepped over to the console to make Ron turn on the device. A slightly garbled Celestina Warbeck tune came on, though no one seemed to enjoy hearing it. Disgust frowned and was ready to make Ron change the station when a voice emanated from his pocket.

" _Remember…remember Ron? When he broke his wand, crashing the car? It was never the same again, he had to get a new one"…_

There was a very long silence.

Fear was the first to make a sound—I—what—that sounded like Hermione! Oh Merlin, is she here?"

"Hermione? Oh, maybe Harry's dead and she wanted to come tell us in person…not that we deserve to see her again…" mumbled Sadness.

Fear jumped for the console and scanned the room for any sign of Hermione's presence, but there was nothing. Perhaps she was Disillusioned? But no, why would she come find Ron only to hide herself? Fear pulled one lever, and Ron reached for his pocket, where her voice had seemed to come from, and retrieved a small, silver device.

"Um…okay, why is the Delumo-whatsit speaking? It's never done that before". Fear scratched his head, and drove Ron to focus on the instrument intently. Ron rubbed its silvery side, and then slowly, carefully flicked the switch.

The lights went out, as they normally did, but then something happened that none of them had ever seen before. Directly outside the window, a second light appeared, a misty, silvery-blue orb, almost like an unformed Patronus, or the remnants of a disappeared Portkey. Joy slowly turned to stare at the glowing orb.

"Guys…I think we need to go outside."

"Are you _crazy_?" exclaimed Fear. "We have no idea what that thing is! What if it's a trap?" He reached for the console, ready to make Ron curl back into bed in terror, but Joy and Anger stopped him.

"Fear, don't you realize what this is? This is our way out of here! This could be our only chance of fixing everything!" Joy looked almost desperate, pleading, even. Anger just grunted in agreement, and Fear slowly backed away.

"Oh…we should make sure Bill and Fleur know where we've gone. They'll be upset if we disappear," said Sadness. As Anger and Joy began to talk about how they would approach the mysterious glowing orb that seemed to be beckoning them outside, Sadness induced Ron to write a note to Bill and Fleur – nothing too long, just a simple "gone back to Harry and Hermione, thanks for the room, Ron", and Fear coordinated packing up. Disgust watched them all silently, not really needed at the moment, but quietly hoping that Joy was right about what they were planning.

Ron ducked outside in the early morning light. As if sensing him coming, the mysterious orb began to slowly pulsate, up and down, almost reminding Joy of a loyal hunting dog waiting for its master. As Ron approached, the orb slowly, softly began to move, towards the garden shed. Fear took control, such that Ron would follow the orb with an appropriate amount of caution.

The orb gently floated toward Ron, so close that it was practically touching him – and then it disappeared inside his chest. Fear took a breathless step back as the console glowed – not red, or purple, or any of the other colors they were accustomed to, but pearly silvery-white. A Recall Tube that none of them had summoned descended from the ceiling, and the orb descended, identical to any other memory except for its strange color.

Silently, the other emotions crowded around the console as Anger installed the orb. The image within started out blurry, but grew clearer by the second, a woody hillside somewhere, covered in deep snowdrifts. Anger looked around at the others as if asking for their approval, and then with Ron concentrating as much on that image as possible, they Disapparated.

The dry, colder air was the first thing they felt, and then Ron's eyes opened to reveal the snow-covered hillside exactly as it had appeared in the orb. Joy grinned widely.

"Yes, we're here, we're HERE! Now, where's here?"

"I don't know, but are you sure Harry and Hermione are around?" Fear scanned the trees and the snowdrifts, as if expecting a werewolf to jump out of the undergrowth at any moment. "And how do we know this isn't some kind of trap, hmm? What if the Death Eaters lured us here?" He grew more frantic, as if expecting the black-cloaked, silver-masked wizards to materialize.

" _No_." Joy grabbed him by the shoulders with as much strength as he could. "This can't be Dark Magic, it's Dumbledore's own…thingy…that brought us here! There's something here for us to find, now we just have to find it!"

"How would that have happened, though?" sniffled Sadness. "Did Dumbledore somehow link some kind of Tracking Charm to the Deluminator? I think if Harry or Hermione had been able to call us that way, they'd have done it earlier. That's assuming they wanted us back with them, which I doubt."

"Well we'll just have to see and find out, now!" Joy exclaimed with a determined look that Disgust knew meant he wouldn't back down from this challenge unless something truly impossible happened. "They're probably under all those protective charms now, but when they break camp, we'll be able to find them!"

"Okay…so do we just sit around in the cold until then?" said Disgust.

None of the others could come up with a better option, so Ron unrolled his sleeping bag, cast the strongest Warming Charm he could, and settled in for the wait


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter 5

It was all Joy could do to contain himself. Harry was there, alive! Granted, none of them were sure exactly what Harry was doing, but there he was! Ron, from his vantage point behind the trees, watched as the bright, silvery, hoofed animal – too far away to identify exactly – came out of the thicket, and Harry came behind it.

The Patronus led Harry towards the pond, but none of the Emotions touched the console, not sure if they should induce Ron to approach Harry or to run away again. There was a moment of blackness as it disappeared, but then Harry lit his wand and began to pace around the pool. Disgust began to whisper, to wonder what Harry was doing as he directed the light into the pool, then around the clearing. Fear pulled a lever, and Ron hid behind a tree before Harry could see him.

Harry waved his wand at the pool and then, to Ron's surprise, he began to take off his clothes. First his jacket, then his sweater, then his other sweater, then his shoes, then his trousers, then his shirt, all piled by his side. He pointed his wand at the ice, and then there was a loud _crack_ that made Fear flinch. He placed his lit wand on the ground, bent his knees, and jumped into the water.

For about ten seconds, nothing happened. From far away, Ron could see that Harry was bobbing up and down in the pond, violently trembling without submerging his face. Harry seemed to take a deep breath, and then dipped below the surface. When he came up a few seconds later, he seemed to be struggling with something, gripping his hands about his neck, and it was clear something was wrong.

"What's going on?" screamed Sadness. "He looks like he's not breathing!"

"It's the damn Horcrux, is what it is!" muttered Disgust. "He kept it on for some reason, and now it's killing him!" Anger snarled and strode up to the console. Joy closed his eyes, desperately hoping something could be done, as Anger gripped the machine. Fear grabbed Anger's shoulders.

"Anger, what are you doing?"

"What does it look like I'm doing? Harry's in trouble! We did not come all this way just to watch our _best friend_ drown! That's not fair!"

"You mean we have to actually dive into that freezing water?"

"You got a better idea?"

"But Ron doesn't know how to swim!"

"SHUT UP! HARRY IS ABOUT TO DIE RIGHT HERE!"

Fear tightly gripped onto the console, but Anger's influence was so strong that Ron probably only felt the dread of the cold water as an afterthought at best. A shadowy movement flickered in Ron's peripheral vision from a pair of trees to the side, but only Joy paid it any mind – Ron charged for the pool and with whimpers from Disgust and Sadness, dove in.

The shock of the below-freezing water made loud, clear alarm bells go off throughout the room, but Anger ignored them as Ron's hand closed around the hilt of the sword. Fear screamed and Ron's head turned around – Harry was desperately trying to loosen the tightening chain around his throat. With a hard press on the wheel, Anger drove Ron to put his arms around Harry's chest and pull him out of the pool, the chain on the locket snapping in two as the sword's blade was deftly maneuvered between skin and metal.

As Harry choked and retched on the ground, Ron nervously stepped towards him, holding the gold chain in his hands. The emotions were silent, as Fear and Anger backed away from the console and Disgust stepped in to take their place.

" _Why the_ hell _didn't you take this thing off before you dived_ "?

Harry didn't say anything at first, but crawled over to the pile of his clothes and began to pull them on. He didn't take his eyes off Ron, though, which made Fear tremble nervously.

"Oh, now he's probably going to scream at us…he's probably still mad about the fight…"

"Excuse me, but we just _saved his effing life_ " Anger growled. "If he has any problems with that, why doesn't he just jump back into the water?" Disgust shook his head and lightly stroked the console as Harry rose to his feet.

" _It was y—you?_ "

" _Well, yeah_ "

" _Y—you cast that doe?_ " Disgust frowned – Ron's Patronus was a Jack Russell terrier, not a doe. Was Harry delirious from almost having been strangled to death?

" _What? No, of course not, I thought it was you doing it._ "

" _My Patronus is a stag_ "

" _Oh yeah, I thought it looked different. No antlers_ ".

"Argh – that sounded stupid!" Disgust pressed on the console and it lit up in green, though a very faint green. He was about to try and apologize for that slip of the tongue when Harry spoke again

" _How come you're here_."

There was a long silence, finally broken by Fear.

"Oh no, look, can't we talk about something else! Can't we just get rid of the Horcrux now and have that discussion later"?

"No, no, I don't think he'll let us". Sadness sniffled and came up to the console, gently pushing Disgust out of the way. His influence caused Ron to clear his throat thickly.

" _Well, I've—you know—I've come back. If…if you still want me_."

Another very long pause. Sadness looked down at the ground, prepared for Harry to say no, he didn't want Ron anymore, and the best thing to do would be to leave the sword and go away forever.

"Why not show him the sword?" called Joy weakly. "Maybe he'll be a little happier if he sees that?" Sadness nodded and did so

" _Oh yeah, I got it out. That's why you jumped in, right?"_

" _Yeah, but I don't understand. How did you get here? How did you find us_?"

" _Long story_ ", said Ron. Sadness recalled the memories of the Deluminator, the orb of light that guided him onto the snowy hillside and then into this forest, and how the hoofed Patronus had guided him here. When he motioned to the pair of trees where Ron had espied something moving as he was running toward Harry, Harry quickly moved over there and looked around, but evidently could see no sign of anyone.

" _So, how did the sword ever get in the pool_ "?

" _Whoever cast the Patronus must have put it there_ "

" _You reckon this is the real one"?_

" _Only one way to find out, isn't there_ "? Harry led Ron over to a flat-looking rock underneath a tree. Fear breathed a sigh of relief, and Sadness prepared to hand Harry the sword.

"Okay, we've had our moment of glory, now Harry can destroy the Horcrux?"

" _No, you should do it_."

The emotions fell silent. Fear softly shuddered, muttering to himself quietly "No, he can't mean—we shouldn't—"

"Fear?" asked Joy.

Fear took one look at him, then firmly pressed a button " _Me? Why?_ "

" _Because you got the sword out of the pool. I think it's supposed to be you_."

"Oh no, _no, NO!"_ exclaimed Fear. "He can't be serious! After he saw what happens to us when we just have the thing around our neck? If it actually opens up, who knows what'll happen? We might not survive!"

" _I'm going to open it and you stab it. Straightaway, okay? Because whatever's in there will put up a fight. The bit of Riddle in the diary tried to kill me_."

"AS IF THAT'S SUPPOSED TO MAKE ME FEEL ANY BETTER!?" Fear was looking on the edge of a full-blown panic attack now. Joy tried to maneuver onto the machine, just to give Ron enough optimism to get over this bout of panic, but Fear had taken up almost all the available space there.

" _How are you going to open it_?"

" _I'm going to ask it to open, using Parseltongue_." And with that, Fear screamed and began pulling every lever, every key he could reach. Headquarters glowed bright purple as the panic overtook Ron

" _No! No, don't open it! I'm serious!_ "

" _Why not?_ _Let's get rid of the damn thing, it's been months—"_

" _Because that thing's bad for me!"_ Joy meekly tried to whisper something in Fear's ear, something to make him calm down, but he wasn't having any of it. " _I can't handle it! I'm not making excuses, Harry, for what I was like, but it affects me worse than it affected you and Hermione, and it made me think stuff— stuff I was thinking anyway, but it made everything worse. I can't explain it, and then I'd take it off and I'd get my head on straight again, and then I'd have to put the effing thing back on—I can't do it, Harry!"_

"Fear, please!" Joy grabbed his arm now, looking desperate. " _Please!_ We've come so far, now, and we have to show Harry we can make amends for what we did! It's our only hope!"

"Hope? HOPE? Once we open that locket, whatever is in there is going to come out and go straight for us! We could barely function just from a fraction of that! There is no hope!"

" _You can do it. You can! You've got the sword, I know it's supposed to be you who uses it. Please, just get rid of it, Ron_."

Joy grabbed Fear by the shoulders and looked into his eyes, silently pleading. The others stepped closer, tears forming in Sadness' eyes, Anger crossing his arms menacingly, Disgust looking up at the screen blankly, and then Fear, with a whimper, took a step away from the console, though keeping one hand pressed there. Anger immediately moved to fill the empty space, and it was with a mixture of determination and terror – purple and red glows lit up Headquarters – that Ron approached the rock where Harry had placed the Horcrux.

" _Tell me when_ ". The emotions crowded themselves around the console as well as they could, ready to assist.

" _Three…two…one…_ open"

There was a soft _click_ , and the locket opened up. Inside it were two eyes, coal-black, expressively handsome, and utterly terrifying.

The second the door opened, they all felt it. The bitter cold that they remembered all too well from Ron's days wearing the locket was back, ten times more powerful now that they were confronted eye-to-eye with the evil that it emanated from, the emotions now feeling what Ron had physically gone through just minutes before. Teeth chattering, Fear began to manipulate the console almost automatically, and Ron's hands shook as he raised the sword.

" _Stab_."

Joy clung onto Fear in a desperate death-grip, all his strength gone as the demonic cold descended on Headquarters. Anger gripped Fear's shoulder with one hand, and with the other, slammed the center button on the console, to give Ron the fortitude to destroy that accursed object once and for all…

Nothing happened.

From the spot where Anger had touched the console, an inky blackness began to spread across the surface, and he jerked his hand away as if in pain. The lights in the room began to flicker, and the shadow began to coalesce off the console, a dark cloud of smoke that emanated outward in a ring, faceless and relentless. A low, hissing voice seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere at once, and the lights dimmed.

" _I have seen your heart, and it is mine!_ "

Fear let out a terrified shriek and tried to run away, but the cloud of smoke was faster. The smoke _pounced_ onto him and wrapped around his body, pouring into his eyes, his mouth, and then it was gone. Fear took a step back, blinking a few times – and then his face contorted into a sinister grin, his normally lavender skin now a much darker purple. And his eyes – none of the emotions had ever seen eyes like that, but recalled Harry's descriptions from when he had faced You-Know-Who – glowing scarlet, with catlike slits for pupils.

" _I have seen your dreams, Ronald Weasley, and I have seen your fears. All that you desire is possible…but all that you dread is also possible…_ "

"Heh…maybe we shouldn't be so quick to destroy the thing?" Fear spoke in a much lower, much smoother tone than any of the others had ever heard him use. "After all the crap we've gone through up to now, wouldn't it be better to just…not have to deal with it anymore?"

"HAVE YOU GONE CRAZY!?" screamed Anger. "If we don't stop it now, You-Know-Who wins! Harry and probably all our friends die! I don't know what's wrong with the console right now, but…"

Fear grabbed him around the throat before he could speak another word. Anger screamed in rage and defiance, in a way that would ordinarily have sent Fear cowering into a corner, but instead, he looked Anger in the eyes, opened his mouth, and another puff of the dark smoke was blasted into Anger's face. The red emotion twitched and seized for a few seconds, then became still as Fear lowered him to the ground, his ruddy skin darkening to a deep, almost maroon shade. He opened his eyes as well, and they were identical to Fear's.

" _Least loved, always, by the mother who craved a daughter…Least loved, now, by the girl who prefers your friend…Second-best, always eternally overshadowed…_ "

"Hmm…ain't _that_ the truth?" said Anger malevolently. "Our entire life, you know, useless, screwing everything up, with our brothers and Harry and Hermione always looking down on us…maybe we should give them all some payback?"

Disgust was trying valiantly not to throw up, and Sadness was slamming his tear-stained hands on the console – Joy could still hear Harry begging Ron to stab the locket into oblivion – but it didn't work for him any more than it had for Anger. There was a pulse of heat from the rock, and two figures exploded into Ron's field of vision – and _there_ were Harry and Hermione, the man standing off to the side now forgotten. Only instead of green and brown, their eyes were a devilish, glowing scarlet, with slitted pupils like a cat's – the same color as Fear and Anger, now.

" _Why return? We were better without you, happier without you, glad of your absence! We laughed at your stupidity, your cowardice, your presumption…"_

" _Presumption!"_ cackled Hermione. Sadness burst into a fresh round of tears upon seeing her face, but nothing he did seemed to have any effect on Ron. " _Who could look at you, who would_ ever _look at you, besides Harry Potter? What have you ever done, compared with the Chosen One? What are you, compared with the Boy who Lived_?"

There was nothing in Ron's Mind's Eye but her face, no sound in Ron's ears but her voice, the sound of Harry's desperate cries as much meaningless background noise as the wind. Joy desperately tried to crawl toward the darkened console, momentarily unnoticed as Anger and Fear turned on Disgust. Anger held him down – Disgust tried to spit in his face – but Fear breathed a cloud of black smoke into Disgust's lungs. Within seconds, his skin had become the dark green of swamp mold, and his eyes were glowing red.

"It's all true, you know," he said in a near-monotone, staggering to his feet. "Ron Weasley is a worthless, imbecilic failure. Ron cannot maintain his social connections or anything else competently. This is true, and will continue to be true unless drastic action is taken."

" _Your mother confessed that she would have preferred me as a son, would be glad to exchange…"_

" _Who wouldn't prefer him? What woman would take you? You are nothing, nothing,_ nothing _to him!"_

Joy had no idea what he was even doing, but knew that he had to at least _try_ , even if it was the last thing he ever did. Inch by painful inch, he moved closer to the console on his hands and knees, never taking his eyes off the machine that Sadness was still trying to coax some response out of. A very faint, electric blue glow was seen, and finally, Ron raised Gryffindor's sword high into the air. Joy's heart leapt at the sight, but then he noticed that the sword was not pointing at the locket, but rather that Sadness was angling the blade toward Ron's own chest.

"SADNESS, WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!"

"It's all true, Joy!" was Sadness' garbled response as he fought back the tears. "There's just no hope for us! We're weak, stupid, and have already ruined Ron's life! Look, Hermione's chosen Harry, and the others are already possessed! This is the only way we can be sure to stop causing destruction and pain!"

"NO! YOU CAN'T!"

Fortunately – or unfortunately – then Anger, Disgust, and Fear grabbed Sadness and pulled him away from the console. With a blast of darkened smoke, his skin was now a darker, navy shade of blue, and his eyes glowed red.

"So…much…pain…" stammered Sadness, sitting on the ground in a motionless heap. "So…much…pain…must…end". He gulped miserably, and Joy desperately wanted to believe that there was something left of him. He was almost close enough to touch the console now, and he could feel it reacting warmly to his presence, as it hadn't done for anybody else.

Anger bellowed like an enraged bull and charged for Joy, Fear closely following with a wild-eyed, crazed look on his face, while Disgust brought up the rear, striding like a zombie. Sadness was too overcome with malevolent despair to do much of anything, but the other three closed in on Joy with grim purpose. Joy's hand caressed the surface of the console – it was _cold_ , colder than ice, but Joy pressed on the button in the center, focusing with all his might on countering the feelings of paranoia and revenge and self-loathing and despair that the other four emanated, giving Ron hope that he could succeed, even if it was at just this one thing…

Anger grabbed his legs, as a bright flash of yellow, the first one that had been seen in Headquarters for months now, lit up the console.

The sword descended upon the locket, shattering it into pieces.

The inky black smoke that had possessed Fear, Anger, Disgust, and Sadness sucked itself back towards the center of the room, and with a burst of heat and light, Headquarters exploded. Joy felt his head smack against the wall, then landed on the floor. The Mind's Eye had gone all white, and there was no sound from Ron's ears, no feeling against Ron's skin, no input from the outside world at all.

"Are…are we dead?" mumbled Sadness. Joy looked over to where he had fallen and was elated to see that his skin and eyes were back to their normal colors. All the other emotions, too, were groggily coming back to themselves, the dark presence that had possessed them gone.

"I don't think so", said Joy, though he couldn't be entirely sure. Some faint outlines were starting to appear in the Mind's Eye – the console didn't look damaged, but the Islands of Personality seemed to have taken the full force of the blast. Family Island was off-kilter – probably from that comment about Mum – Quidditch Island was in disrepair, and so was Magic Island, though the last one was slowly fixing itself. The Emotions felt, rather than saw Ron collapse to his knees.

There was…something like speech filtering through Ron's ears, but they couldn't understand it at all – Joy realized that the explosion must have torn through more of the mind than he'd first thought, badly enough to mess up Language Processing at least for a moment. The Emotions crowded around the console, finding that it was strangely more comfortable for all of them to stand there than it used to be. Onscreen, the world was growing visible again, though blurry with tears as Ron seemed to feel Sadness stronger than the others.

" _I'm sorry. I'm sorry I left. I know I was a…a…_ "

" _You've sort of made up for it tonight. Getting the sword. Finishing off the Horcrux. Saving my life_."

"Oh, for Merlin's sake – he makes it sound like Ron knew what he was doing this whole time," remarked Disgust. "Let's…um…not tell him about how close we came to dying and being possessed and all that?"

"Agreed" said Anger.

" _That makes me sound a lot cooler than I was_ "

" _Stuff like that_ always _sounds cooler than it really was. I've been trying to tell you that for years_."

Joy and Sadness moved simultaneously. Ron stood up and hugged Harry, all five Emotions pressing close to the console. At that moment, something marvelous happened.

The console shuddered and whirred, and a new memory orb came out, the first that they had seen since before Ron had broken open the locket. Only this was no ordinary sphere, but a bright, lustrous Core Memory with all five colors displayed prominently – green for the shame and embarrassment Ron had felt upon facing Harry for the first time, red for the passion and determination of saving Harry's life and trying to destroy the locket, purple for the dread of the cold water and panic of facing the locket, blue for Ron nearly being driven to suicide by despair, and for the regret of everything he had done, and finally yellow for the moment the Horcrux had died.

The Emotions gaped in awe at the new Friendship Island. The new sculpture was in some ways like the previous one, Ron and Harry and Hermione holding hands, but before, it had clearly been Ron supported by Harry and Hermione, unable to stand on his own without them. Now the three of them stood in a circle, _all_ supporting each other against falling into the abyss.

"So now what do we do?" said Fear. "Is it…is it all okay now? Ron can go back? What if we mess up again?"

"I guess from here on, we just…do the best we can," said Joy. The Emotions – all five of them now, in their ways – guided Ron to return to the camp at his best friend's side.

/

 **A/N: I would like to extend my thanks to everyone who has followed, favorited, or reviewed this story of mine. I am pleased, as much as I can be, to have done my part in enriching this community however I can.**

 **I don't know if I will write another HP/IO crossover, though anyone who would like to see me explore some other scene or character is free to say so, either in review or in a PM.**

 **Thank you again, and happy new year**


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